BUZZ BANDS

Voxtrot shows a more sober side

Forgive singer-guitarist Ramesh Srivastava if he stays away from a computer for a few weeks. “I’m sick of reading about it on the Internet already,” the Voxtrot singer-songwriter says of his quintet’s debut album, released Tuesday. “People blog and things like that, but ...”

But it’s a double-edged sword. Those same writers who heaped praise on Voxtrot’s three EPs and its merry Anglophilic sensibilities -- accelerating the buzz that made the Austin, Texas, group a national phenomenon -- have reacted quizzically to the more thoughtful and textured “Voxtrot.” Yes, the nods to Britpop and the likes of the Smiths, and Belle and Sebastian are still there, but what happened to the party?

“I don’t know what the album would have had to sound like to live up to the buzz,” Srivastava says. “I do feel like there’s too much emphasis on the concept that a band is not a band until they put out an album.”

Voxtrot has been a band since 2002, when the frontman got together with boyhood friends Mitch Calvert (guitar), Jason Chronis (bass), Jared Van Fleet (keyboards) and Matt Simon (drums). The band’s infancy was interrupted by Srivastava’s studies, first in Boston, then in Glasgow, Scotland. The three EPs were recorded when he was home on holiday -- that’s where the party was.

“I finally came back to do the band full force ... and I kind of went insane for a while,” Srivastava says of that period, during which he dealt with the death of a grandmother. In the end, though, he is proud of the range displayed on the final product. “Nothing really encapsulated us up until now.”

Voxtrot performs Tuesday at the El Rey Theatre.

Pub pickup is working out

It might have been the most productive 10 minutes Eamon Hamilton ever played. The keyboardist of British Sea Power was doing an acoustic guitar set in a Brighton, England, pub when two tipsy patrons approached and offered to play on the songs.

They were Tom and Alex White, the duo behind Brighton luminaries and onetime Mercury Music Prize nominees the Electric Soft Parade. Hamilton was game. “From the first chords, we knew we had something special. They are just sickeningly talented, those two,” Hamilton says.

Now they are doing double duty in BrakesBrakesBrakes, the Hamilton project that this week released its second album, “The Beatific Visions.” It’s a collection of occasionally twangy pop-punk, quick-moving and catchy and built on Hamilton’s agitated yelp. (The first album was released as Brakes, before Hamilton renamed the quartet to avoid a conflict with a U.S. band called the Brakes. “We’re so good we named ourselves three times,” he jokes.)

Like the album, which mixes what Hamilton calls “the great stories and the heartbroken quality” of country music with fun sendups such as the dance number “Spring Chicken,” the tour that brings the band to Spaceland on Wednesday is all in good fun. Electric Soft Parade is also on the bill, supporting its own new album, “No Need to Be Downhearted.”

Says Hamilton: “Tom and Alex will be drinking a lot

of coffee.”

Fast forward

* Touts: Division Day returns to Spaceland tonight, while Under the Influence of Giants gets the party started at the El Rey Theatre.... Jangly Brits the Clientele play tonight at the Knitting Factory.... Faux Parisians Nous Non Plus support Hello Stranger at Safari Sam’s on Friday.... Phantom Planet plays Monday at the Roxy.... And Lonely, Dear and Great Northern perform at the Troubadour on Wednesday.

*

Recommended downloads

Download Voxtrot’s “Kid Gloves”: promo.beggars.com/us/mp3/voxtrot_kidgloves.mp3

* Download BrakesBrakesBrakes’ “Hold Me in the River”: worlds-fair.net/media/brakesbrakesbrakes/Hold_Me_In_The_River.mp3